Amid Myriads of Stars

Amid myriads of stars in a new moon night, I felt that we are only a small creature when comparing to the universe.

In that darkest night, the Milky Way could be observed with our naked eyes. I carefully set my camera on the spot while worrying about the incoming tide, even reducing its level from time to time. My brightest wide angel is Carl Zeiss 21/2.8 and it was used in this shot for foreground. I took two shots, one with 20 minutes @ f8.0 and iso 400 to make sure the rock's sharpness. I used hyper focus in the first shot.

Another shot was taken with about 3 minutes @ f4.0 and iso 3200. I lightened the rock, located in the foreground, by light painting it with my small torch.

Unfortunately, even the widest aperture of the lens (i.e., f2.8), I cannot illustrate the beauty of the Milky Way as it was. Hence, Carl Zeiss ZF 35/2.0 was used to capture the sky (i.e., iso 6400, f2.0, and 15 seconds).

In post processing, three shots were manipulated in Adobe photoshop. Nik Software, tonal contrast, was used to boost details of the Milky Way.

Note:

(1) I set up WB to 3200k for taking these shots.

(2) To make sure that stars will not move when taking long exposure shot, '600/focal length' was calculated. For example, I used 35mm., then 600/35 = 17s., which is the maximum exposure we could use in the shot. My originate idea came from this link: